'Bring it on, I can do this'

Sunday

Apr 28, 2013 at 12:01 AM

STOCKTON - Her head shaven, her eyebrows wispy and her lashes sparse, DeLyla Morn sat at the table in the dining area of her family's comfortable Kelley Drive duplex late one afternoon last week studying geometry with her teacher.

Roger Phillips

STOCKTON - Her head shaven, her eyebrows wispy and her lashes sparse, DeLyla Morn sat at the table in the dining area of her family's comfortable Kelley Drive duplex late one afternoon last week studying geometry with her teacher.

This is testing season in California, and Collette and DeLyla were getting ready. In reality, though, the 9-year-old Colonial Heights Elementary third-grader has been enduring a far more important test in recent months, and she appears to be acing it.

In early October, when DeLyla began feeling sick, her parents' first thought was she had picked up a bug at school. But in mid-October, concern mounted for Tommy and Maline Morn when DeLyla suffered a violent seizure. A doctor checked DeLyla and told her parents to keep an eye on their daughter, but said he thought she was fine. It turned out she wasn't.

On Halloween, dressed as a skirt-wearing NFL referee - "the only cute costume I saw" - DeLyla suffered a second seizure while visiting her grandparents' residence down the street. The youngest of his three children in his arms, Tommy yelled for someone to call 911.

At Dameron Hospital, a doctor asked DeLyla to describe her symptoms. "I told him I wanted him to check my brain because I thought I might have a migraine," DeLyla said, but the doctor told her that young children don't have those sorts of headaches.

A CT scan confirmed it wasn't a migraine. It was much worse. DeLyla had tumors in her brain, and eventually a biopsy would show them to be cancerous.

"Bring it on, I can do this," Maline recalls DeLyla saying after she learned her rare diagnosis: germ cell tumors of the brain.

DeLyla's first stay at Children's Hospital & Research Center in Oakland began on Halloween and lasted a month. In the months that followed, she would be hospitalized for days at a time after six sickening, exhausting rounds of chemotherapy.

Maline admits she was in denial, waiting to awaken from a bad dream. Tommy was scared. But DeLyla stayed upbeat.

"She was dancing and singing while she was hooked up to the IV pole," Tommy said.

The only time she ever became upset, DeLyla says, was when she was told she would not be able to attend school during her treatment.

"I don't want to stay home," she told her parents. "I won't get to see my friends."

Maline said, "That was the only time she cried."

Since December, Collette has been visiting the Morn residence two or three times a week to teach DeLyla. By California law, school districts are required to provide home educational services to students dealing with medical issues over extended periods of time. A Lincoln Unified spokesperson said DeLyla is one of four students in the district currently receiving such services.

Collette, who works with students of all grades at Colonial Heights, said she requested the assignment when she learned DeLyla would need home services.

"I asked to do it," Collette said. "I love this kid. This is by far the best part of my day when I come here. She is the strongest child, the bravest child I've seen in my life. She makes my day brighter. It truly has been an experience I will never forget."

Doctors have told DeLyla's parents their girl has an 80 percent chance of survival. Though she has completed her chemotherapy, DeLyla still may need radiation before being declared cancer-free.

Bald head aside, DeLyla showed no hint of illness last week after completing a portion of the California Standards Test. She giggled and smiled as she boned up on her geometry skills with Collette, and upon request even belted out a stanza of Adele's "Someone Like You." The kid can sing.

"She's our little superstar, our little entertainer," Maline said. "Singing, dancing, she can never stay still for longer than five minutes."

DeLyla was an advanced student before becoming ill, Collette said, and she remains ahead of some of her classmates.

Though she hopes to return to Colonial Heights next school year, she admits she's seen at least one benefit of her temporary stint of home-schooling.

"It's been easier," she said. "I get to go faster because I'm the only one here. Some of the other kids at school are slow."